Dubious Logic

Why You Should Play Zebra

I'll be honest. This is a commercial for a system that I invented. There is nothing new under the sun of course and many of its components have been unashamedly plagiarised from other people. So apart from our experiences many of the ideas come with a pedigree. I say 'our' because a school of players has grown up; Chris Green and myself, Peter Sutcliffe, Jim Gobert, Gerry Stanford, Mike Ash and Robert Ferrari, all playing the system. One of the things that has appealed to us is the ability to shape it with our own ideas and no pair plays exactly the same way.

So what's it about? At the foundations we are talking five card majors, mid or strong no-trump and a 'prepared' club opener. The Zebra bit is the one club. If you are to get the maximum out of this you will already have been convinced of the benefits of five card majors. Whether you consider them to be intrinsically more accurate or more suited to your style, I am not going to sell them to you here. If you are less convinced of at least a 14-16 NT then I can tell you that the system operates OK with 10-12. Indeed it is possible to play 12-14 NT and even 4 card majors with Zebra but it raises a number of difficulties that I will touch upon later.

I'll satisfy your curiosity now as to the name. With the original 14-16 opening NT, there are two ranges of balanced hand concealed within 1♣, 11-13 and 17-19. Both ranges will describe themselves no higher than 1NT. These 'stripes' are the trademark of the Zebra. The advantage in separating the NT ranges is greater clarity in both competitive and constructive sequences. Lets look at some hands:

A perennial problem - do you support with three cards? In some cases it's obvious even when you know partner will expect four but in others it's not. Bidding the five card suit again is almost always wrong when the hand is balanced - sometimes partner even has a singleton, e.g. 9, AJ9, KQ104, QJ753.

And in competition the going gets tougher. You're more likely to support but it won't always be right. We've all surely absorbed the propaganda by now, but I will state one of the few immutable laws of bridge. Support to the trick level of your combined trumps. As partner has five spades in the last you should raise to 2♠, if only four, you should pass. Of course you don't know which. Another worry:

Here you will get too high a significant portion of the time. 2NT is an uphill task on these cards. But there are some who play a NT rebid as wide range, either 12-16 or 15-18, doesn't this solve your problems? Well the 12-16 only compounds them but even 15-18 gets you to 2NT too often when you would want to be lower. Even if you elect to pass the 7-counts opposite (and I suggest you should), transfer the CQ and East's 8-count is too much for a soul to bear and some highly descriptive invitational sequence will wind its way past the safest contract.

But isn't this all about NT range, and arbitrary? No, the problem is that the desire to open as many hands as possible tears at traditional structures. In olden days cavemen opened only if they had 13 HCP and the minimum balanced hand was 13-15. This fitted in nicely with responding holding 6+ and the opening 16-18 NT. Post-Modernism has us opening 11 counts and you cannot expect every 'opening' hand opposite to result in game or every 5+ response to produce a safe spot. One more:

Yes you really ought to bid on these hands but partner doesn't always have such a suitable holding and swap a spade for a heart in East's hand and not many would give anything other than pass a second thought. So why do we put up with systems that have these flaws? Many people don't. They change radically to, say, a strong club like Precision or Blue Club. There are different dangers and problems here of course but what I'm going to suggest is a good deal less dramatic.

Zebra bases itself around an aggressive treatment of balanced hands. It includes five card major responses to 1♣ and a sophisticated safety net that allows responder to act on quite weak hands. There are many fit showing bids at low level so that the responder can easily judge major suit lengths. Early sequences are similar to Stayman in that responder looks for the best contract by interviewing opener while giving nothing away. Alternatively when opener is strong, game forcing values are established at quite a low level and the emphasis for disclosure falls on responder. There is due importance placed on correctly 'siding' the eventual contract.

Let's go back to the first point, what is so good about opening minimum, and there are many who would say, sub-minimum, hands? We're back to the twin arguments behind any method, intrinsic and stylistic. The second is as important as the first, if not more so. What success do you get opening light? Do you enjoy it? Do things go wrong when you do it? There is no point opening only to spend the rest of the auction cringing (inwardly of course). Even if the final error cannot be traced directly to the first call, it is often fear of being 'found out' that leads to under-competition or failure to co-operate in slam tries and the like.

Open aggressively only if you are comfortable doing so. What Zebra will do is to give you more ways to win and keep you out of trouble when it is not your hand. We open all balanced hands a club, all 4432s so the club length has a minimum of two. This makes it alertable but means that the diamond opener is always long - virtually guaranteeing 5 (unless 4441 exactly). I will assume a 14-16 opening NT for the time being, until we discuss modifications at the end. With this base we open virtually all 11-13 balanced types, forcing them to play our system not theirs.

Approaches

So partner has opened a short club, what now? We respond a major only with five and sufficient strength and look for a 4-4 fit via 1♦ - a sort of Stayman. So general plans for responder are:

Weak hands:

• Respond 1♦ and then bid your suit - possibly developing it conventionally, say via a transfer over openers NT rebid.
• Pass opener's natural rebid.

Intermediate hands:

• Respond 1♦, allow opener to describe, raise invitationally or bid NT.
• With diamonds, respond 1♦ and bid 3♦ or 3♣ (both minors) over 1M.
• Respond 1M, make a game try if support emerges or raise NT.
• Respond 1NT, natural, or 2♣, both of which are limited.

Strong Hands:

• Start with 1♦, ask repeatedly, bid game.
• Bid 1M, assess fit, bid game.
• With diamonds, respond 1♦ and jump to 2NT over 1M (game force).
• Support ♣ in a game forcing way (2NT or splinter).

Responses

So formally, the responses to 1♣* are these:

(Don't be put off but I have used some shorthand to make this article more concise. Alertable bids when mentioned for the first time are *'ed, M means either major, FG is forcing to game and NF is non-forcing. This may be your first look at a system explicitly defined but it's actually only a few sequences.)

1♦*	See below

1♥/♠	5 card suit, 7+ HCP.

1NT	9-11 HCP, balanced, maybe a bad 4 card major if the hand is NT suitable.

2♣	5 clubs, 8-11 HCP, non-forcing - a constructive club raise.

2♦*/2♥*	Weak, 4-6, transfer, as you would over 1NT

2♠*/2NT*	In truth you can play what you like (and the above two as well) but I suggest you continue as if partner had opened a weakish NT. We play 2♠* as a 4441, any singleton, as they are typically tough to get across. 2NT* is a balanced game forcing club raise.

3♣*	Weak, 6+ clubs, 3NT unlikely.

1♦*	Now this is the fall through bid and denies the ability to make any of the above. It covers all the balanced hands where a 4-4 major suit fit might be found and all those 5 card majors not strong enough to respond 1M immediately. It is also first start on the diamond hands.

It's the responses to 1♦ that set the system apart. Opener rebids a NT if he is strong and balanced - above the opening NT range therefore 17-19. That leaves us with all these 11-13 types. If you have 4 spades you bid a spade, otherwise with weak balanced you mark time with a heart. Long club hands can describe themselves naturally, so we have:

Opener's rebids after the diamond response

1♣	1♦

1♥*	11-13 without 4 spades or clubs and hearts.

1♠	4 – possibly 5 if 5♠ and 5♣ – either balanced or with longer clubs. If balanced then 4 hearts might still be held.

1NT	17-19 HCP, balanced. Treat this just as if you had opened a NT, i.e. play Stayman, transfers or whatever.

2♣	6 clubs, possibly only 5♣ if 4 diamonds as well.

2♦/2♥/2♠	Natural, good hand, 17+ , longer clubs.

2NT*	A spare bid, you could either play this as balanced 20-21 and take a bit of weight of your opening 2NT or you could play it as a 'good' 3♣ bid.

3♣	6+ clubs, standard but see above.

With the exception of the 1M rebids, the above are natural and you should be able to carry on bidding in your normal style. Over a spade which is like a four card major opener, you can of course support spades and bid NT etc. But what if responder has four hearts and does not know if opener has too? Remember that opener's first priority is to show 4 spades. Well, we play Stayman over 1♠. Responder's 2♣ asks for four hearts.

The other subtlety arises over the genuinely ambiguous 1♥ rebid. Though responder does not know if opener has hearts or not, at least a spade fit can be ruled out. This leaves responder's 1♠ spare and it is used to ask for further definition. Opener's second rebid:

1♣	1♦

1♥	1♠*

1NT	No major, 11-13 balanced.

2♣*	Four hearts and longer clubs.

2♦*	Balanced 11-13 with 4 hearts

Examples

Lets bid some ordinary hands:

More bidding but less information given away. The defence only know East-West do not have a major fit - the bidding would have been the same if either or both hands lost their four card major for an extra minor suit card.

Reading between the lines you will see that most times we can investigate a fit and stay below 1NT but not all. If opener has both four hearts and four spades the rebid is 1♠ and responder with 4♥ will have to bid 2♣ to find the fit. If no fit comes to light we will end up in 2NT. Of course the required strength will not always be held and so some of the time the partnership play 1NT with a 4-4 heart fit. Is this a problem? Well yes and no. In orthodox systems, responder bids hearts with 4-4 in the majors, if opener has 4 spades and a balanced hand it is accepted practice to rebid 1NT having opened a minor (hand type first - though it is sadly common at club level to bid two suits without a distributional hand). Thus even here a 4-4 major fit can go astray at the part-score level. In fact the shapes that 'miss-out' are identical but swapped between responder and opener. Of course when you actually open a NT you must give up on finding any eight card fit unless you have at least invitational values.

East bids a spade principally to let West describe. This is the invitational route, other meanings are attached to an immediate 2NT. Over a heart rebid we play:

1♣	1♦

1♥

	1NT	To play, whether opener is 11-13 bal. or min, ♥ and ♣.

	2♣*	0-3 HCP, NF, opener usually bids 2♦ and responder passes or converts.

	2♦	NF, natural, reasonable six card suit

	2♥/2♠	NF, as above, bear in mind that responder must hold fewer than 7 HCP.

	2NT*	FG with diamonds.

	3♣*	Clubs and diamonds, at least invitational

	3♦	NF, with diamonds

	3M*	FG, 4♥/♠ and 6♦, values concentrated in those suits.

Why the strange 2♣ bid? We allow opener to have as many as 20-21 HCP. With this holding 1♥ is rebid first then 2NT over the usual 1♠. The advantage is that very weak hands opposite a classic 2NT opener can emerge into their poor suit at the two level. This is not an important part of the system and you can play without such a strong hand featuring in your opening 1♣ and use 2♣ here as plain natural or a weak take-out into either minor.

The main difference between Zebra and classic short club systems is that the immediate responses of a major are five cards. This is a very important. Once the auction starts 1♣ - 1M you are ahead of the field. Your game tries will be simplified by knowing of the fit opposite and the opponents cannot easily obscure it. Take a look again at the problem hands at the start. The second and third were difficult solely because the partners could not be certain of the 8-card fit. The emphasis on this fit is such that we employ a few gadgets over 1M, our structure looks like this:

1♣	1♥/1♠

1♠	A distributional hand, usually 5♣+4♠ but possibly 4144.

1NT	No fit, 11-13 balanced.

2♣*	Artificial; either clubs (nat.) or a 3-card raise of the major.

2♦*	Artificial; balanced 17+, FG, may have fit - even 4 cards

2♥/2♠	A 4-card limit raise.

2♠*/2♥*	Extra values - a reverse, so 5+ clubs as well

2NT	Maybe the 20-21 hand as mentioned earlier or a forcing 4-card raise or perhaps a 'good' 3♣ bid, you can choose. We played it as good hand with poor clubs e.g. AJ,Kx,AQx,Kxxxxx for some time but it never seemed to win us anything. Maybe there's a much better treatment than all these.

3♣	Standard, Either INV or FG, you decide. Remember responder cannot be terrible.

In the sequences above you will normally be immediately better placed. The inference that opener does not have support will simplify both part-score and game auctions. The only areas of unfamiliarity will be in the 2 of a minor rebids. In fact there is no need to play these as anything other than natural. As the 2NT rebid is free you can use that for all balanced hands of 17+ as game values have been (more or less) established. Though I was doubtful at first, the 2♣ rebid, a convention known as 'Cole' in the States (after its inventor), is actually worth having on board. The main plus is that it simplifies the judgement issues after a raise, whether constructive or in competition. Let's look at Cole:

1♣	1♥/2♠

2♣

	2♦*	A relay and the most usual response. Opener bids a new suit to show length there and clubs without reversing values, 2NT with both minors (note that clubs and hearts can now be described easily when responder bids a spade). 3♣ shows just clubs and support to the 2 or 3 level shows 3 cards.

	2♥/2♠	NF, a hand that wants to play in the major come what may.

	2♥	When responder bids both majors it shows 5-5 and is NF.

Others are natural and forcing. Some examples of the structure:

In the first responder has the odd queasy moment, worrying about a club response but partner obliges with support and everything is OK. If opener does respond 3♣ it will be on a six card suit. The second auction does not tempt East to move again - partner cannot hold three spades. The third is a routine enquiry ending in the best game.

The last hand is our first foray into the slam zone but it is an important example. With traditional methods the auction ought to be similar but it is in these circumstances that doubt creeps in on both sides. Often opener is unsure whether the trump support will be good enough and so fails to co-operate. Responder in turn does not respect sign-offs because fitting cards outside trumps will suffice. In our example the holding of Qx, knowing that any 3 card support has already been denied, is tremendous.

Looking at it another way, responder was not expecting any support yet 3♠ effectively insisted upon the suit, therefore it will be a slam try more often and opener can encourage with good cards. Notice that both players are in the game. One of the many problems with wide-range (11-16 or 15-18) NT rebids is that while one player may have slam aspirations the other is mainly evaluating game appropriate values. How many times have you jumped to game aggressively only to have partner carry on when your cards were unsuitable for slam?

We still have one last bit of work to do in order to get the most out of the system. What happens when partner bid a major and opener has a good (17+) balanced hand? Well the first move is to bid 2♦, what then? We have had some wacky treatments for this development over the years including some stuff the world is not quite yet ready for. In a relatively straightforward manner you might play:

1♣	1♥/1♠

2♦

	2♥	A minimum (7-9) but not balanced. Opener will normally bid 2NT to ensure declaring from the strong hand or raise or bid 2♠ and wait for another suit to emerge.

	2♠	Minimum (semi-)balanced hand 5332, 5422, 6322, 7-9. Over opener's likely 2NT you can bid a second suit to show 54 or repeat major with 6322

	2NT	Comfortable values, NT disposition 10-12

	3L	Sound values (otherwise 2♥), natural.

	3NT	10-12 values outside major.

But you could play anything consistent with your philosophy of how to handle committed to game auctions. Natural would be fine but make sure you get some definition of when responder shows extras. We play transfers on which the above is loosely based. This has the excellent side-effect of ensuring that opener gets to play NT as often as possible. In Albuquerque this area provided some of our all too rare triumphs, getting to slams that our often better organised opponents missed. An example:

A team of more than competent Swedes (paradoxically playing a system that gave them a similar start) failed to find this. They were not able to discover any extra values in the East hand until a round or two later. In the sequence above West knows that all the spade and diamond losers are covered and is able to make two encouraging moves below game. With an even better hand, four card trump support for example, the 2♠ 'transfer' can be broken. The only fly in the ointment in auctions like these is that it is important for responder to know what trumps are. After the free shot of 3♦, 3♥ should show a good suit so 3♠ agrees hearts, opener has to bid 4♣ otherwise. In general it is easy to bid a minor to set trumps at the four level than a major - it sounds so much like a sign-off. Clearly you can play in other ways but knowing what trumps are is crucial - especially if, as here, you are going to employ RKCB.

That's it for starters. I have of course missed out a huge tract and that is what happens in competition. You should be able to see for yourself that in general a negative double will take care of the diamond type responses. Indeed the auction 1♣ (1♥) 1♠ showing values and a five card suit which many of you will already play was one of the starting points for developing the system. If anyone is really serious I am quite happy to let them have a copy of the version Chris and I play, but for the rest I will summarise the bits you and your partner need to work on.

Phase 1 -	Get used to the diamond response and the enquiry bid after opener's major rebid. Play the system like this for a while, 5 card major responses but no fancy stuff.

Phase 2 -	Add on the Cole, 2♣ rebid after 1M

Phase 3 -	Produce your version of the 2♦ balanced hand structure.

If you think the system is not for you consider the issues covered here; Opening and responding philosophy, disclosure, degree of fit and support discipline and controlling auctions when you have bid many suits. Remember it is a partnership game, do what you are both happy with, removing doubt will save you more points than the system.

Good luck.